"The Muslim population of Britain reached 3.4 million in 2014 to become around 5.3% of the overall population of 64 million, according to figures extrapolated from a recent study on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe. In real terms, Britain has the third-largest Muslim population in the European Union, after France and Germany.

Islam and Islam-related issues were omnipresent in Britain during 2014, and can be categorized into four broad themes: 1) Islamic extremism and the security implications of British jihadists in Syria; 2) the continuing spread of Islamic Sharia law in Britain; 3) the sexual exploitation of British children by Muslim gangs; and 4) Muslim integration into British society.

What follows is a chronological review of some of the main stories involving the rise of Islam in Britain during 2014."

Kern's report is required reading, but it is so extensive that in this post, I will just provide a couple of key quotes for every month of the year:

JANUARY.

"...In January, an analysis of census data showed that nearly 10% of the babies and toddlers in England and Wales are Muslim. The percentage of Muslims among children under five is almost twice as high as in the general population. By way of comparison, fewer than one in 200 people over the age of 85 are Muslim, an indication of the extent to which the birth rate is changing the religious demographic in Britain.

On January 16, a Muslim woman was arrested by counter-terrorism police at Heathrow Airport as she was preparing to board a flight to Turkey. Nawal Masaad, 26, is accused of trying to smuggle £16,500 ($27,000; €20,000) in her underwear to jihadists in Syria. She and her alleged co-conspirator, Amal El-Wahabi, 27—a Moroccan who does not work and claims British social welfare benefits for herself and two young sons—were the first British women to be charged with terrorism offenses linked to the conflict in Syria.

In Bristol, the city council approved a controversial plan to convert a former comedy club into a mosque. In Cambridgeshire, a Muslim group submitted plans to convert a warehouse into a new mosque. In Cambridge, locals opposed a plan to build a £17.5 million ($28.5 million; €21 million) mega-mosque, claiming it could be "a front for terrorism." In Blackburn, home to nearly 100 mosques, city councilors were urged to reject a plan to open a mosque in a residential neighborhood.

Also in January, a Muslim extremist who hacked a soldier to death on a London street in May 2013, launched a taxpayer-funded appeal against his murder conviction. Michael Adebolajo, 29, who tried to behead the British soldier Lee Rigby with a meat cleaver, maintained that he should not have been convicted because he is a "soldier of Allah" and therefore Rigby's killing was an act of war rather than premeditated murder..."

FEBRUARY.

"...On February 16, The Sunday Times reported that about 250 British jihadists who went to train and fight in Syria had returned to the UK and were being monitored by the security services. Senior officials said the high number of "returnees"—five times the figure that had been previously reported—underlined the growing danger posed by "extremist tourists" going to the war-torn region. MI5 and police said they feared that "returnees" could be preparing a Mumbai-style gun attack on civilians, possibly in a crowded public place in London.

In February, official statistics showed that net immigration to the United Kingdom surged to 212,000 in the year ending September 2013, a significant increase from 154,000 in the previous year. The new immigration data cast doubt on a pledge by Prime Minister David Cameron to get net migration—the difference between the number of people entering Britain and those leaving—down to the "tens of thousands" before the general election in May 2015.

Separately, data released by the National Crime Agency showed a 155% rise in British children groomed by sex gangs during 2013..."

MARCH.

"... On March 13, the Law Society, the main professional association representing and governing the legal profession in England and Wales, issued ground-breaking guidance to help lawyers draft Sharia-compliant wills and estate planning documents. The move effectively enshrined Islamic Sharia law in the British legal system for the first time..."

APRIL.

"...In April, the British government launched a public consultation on whether or not to introduce student loans that are compliant with Islamic Sharia law, which forbids loans that involve the payment of interest.

Critics said that the dispute over interest-bearing student loans follows stepped-up demands for Sharia-compliant banking and insurance as well as credit cards, mortgages and pension funds, which—taken together—are contributing to the establishment of parallel Islamic financial and legal systems in Britain.

Separately, Lloyds Bank was accused of reverse religious discrimination after dropping overdraft fees for Muslims but not for others. The bank said that non-Muslims would have to pay up to £80 (€97, $135) a month for an overdraft, but that for Muslims "there won't be any charges."

Meanwhile, the fast food giant Subway removed ham and bacon from almost 200 outlets in Britain and switched to halal (Arabic for "permitted" or "lawful") meat alternatives, apparently in an attempt to please its Muslim customers...."

MAY.

"... In May, a senior adviser to Lutfur Rahman, the extremist-linked mayor of the heavily Islamized London Borough of Tower Hamlets, threatened Muslim riots unless people stop questioning the manner of his re-election. Rahman narrowly won re-election on May 23 as an independent, but the result was cast into doubt amid dozens of reports of voter intimidation and a chaotic count that took more than five days to declare a final result. Rahman was expelled from the Labour Party in 2010 after The Telegraph revealed his close links to an Islamic extremist group, the Islamic Forum of Europe.

On May 7, Pizza Express, a British restaurant chain, revealed that halal meat was being used in all of its chicken dishes in all of its 434 restaurants across the UK. Under Islamic law, chicken can only be eaten if the bird's throat has been slit while it is still alive. A Koranic verse is also recited during the ritual. On May 15, it emerged that at least a dozen top universities, including Oxford University, have been secretly serving halal meat to unsuspecting students..."

JUNE.

"... In June, Tablighi Jamaat, a radical Islamic group committed to "perpetual jihad" to spread Islam around the world, edged one step closer to building one of the world's largest mosques in London after a star Muslim opponent of the controversial project was intimidated into silence. The proposed mega-mosque would be built on a 16-acre site near the Olympic Stadium, and would have a capacity for more than 9,000 worshippers.

On June 25, Britain became the first Western nation to issue Islamic bonds, completing a plan that was more than seven years in the making. Investors placed £2.3 billion ($3.9 billion) of orders, more than 11 times the amount of bonds on offer.

On June 24, the Minister of State for Universities and Science, David Willetts, said that a Sharia-compliant alternative to the conventional student loan could become available in the UK beginning in 2016. He said: "It would be a tragedy if any student, particularly a Muslim student because of concerns about so-called interest rates, were put off from going to university." He added: "This does not mean we are introducing Sharia law in the UK."

On June 6, the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) admitted that non-Muslim soldiers are unknowingly being fed halal meat on military bases..."

JULY.

"... On July 8, Lord Richard Scott, a former British Supreme Court judge, called on Christians to marry Muslims to tackle Islamophobia. He said:

"Of my two sons one has become a Muslim and of my two daughters one of those has become a Muslim, and I have 12 lovely grandchildren, seven of whom are little Muslims.

"The family relationships since those events took place have been as happily familial, as close and as good as any parent or grandparent could wish.

"I do just wonder that if an improvement is needed between the faith groups, one way of promoting that might be to encourage interfaith marriages."

Senile, traitor, or both? Meet "Lord" Richard Scott, Dhimmi of Foscote, whose biggest accomplishment as family patriarch has been to oversee an evolution whereby after two generations his muslim grandchildren outnumber his non-muslim ones.

AUGUST.

"... In August, data released by the Office of National Statistics [ONS] showed that Mohammed was the most popular given to boys born in Britain in 2013. Although the ONS claimed that Oliver was the top name with 6,949 boys, it was in fact Mohammed when the top three spellings for the name (Muhammad, 3,499; Mohammed, 2,887 and Mohammad, 1,059) are combined to yield 7,445 boys.

On August 26, Alexis Jay, the leader of an independent inquiry in the sexual abuse of children in Rotherham, released a horrifying report that found that gangs of mainly Muslim men of Pakistani heritage had groomed, terrorized and abused at least 1,400 girls, some as young as 11, in Rotherham over a 16-year period between 1997 and 2013...."

SEPTEMBER.

"... On September 3, eight Muslim men were charged with sexually abusing girls under the age of 16. The charges followed series of police raids involving 120 officers in the Thames Valley. On September 9, five Muslim men went on trial in Sheffield, accused of trafficking a 13-year-old girl for sex.

On September 10, the government announced that Muslim students will be offered Sharia-compliant interest free student loans in an effort to get more Islamic pupils to go to university.

In September, a customer at a Leicester branch of KFC was refused a hand-wipe as it might offend Muslims. Graham Noakes, 41, said staff at the fast food chain's outlet in St George's retail park refused to give him a hand-wipe because it was against its halal policy. Staff said this was because the wipes are soaked in an alcohol-infused liquid and alcohol is forbidden in the Koran.

In October, a 75-year-old retiree was arrested for "racism" after saying "I'm not Muslim" when he was asked to remove his shoes at security at Stansted Airport. Paul Griffith was charged with causing "racially or religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress."

OCTOBER.

"... On October 16, a new report showed that in just six months, nearly 2,000 women and girls in England were treated by the National Health Service after undergoing female genital mutilation [FGM]. In September alone, 467 female patients in England were newly identified as having been subjected to FGM. The data published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre [HSCIC] were the first official figures to have been published on the numbers of FGM cases seen in hospitals in England.

On October 30, a new study found that child sexual exploitation has become "the social norm" in many parts of Greater Manchester. The report—Real Voices, Child Sexual Exploitation In Greater Manchester—estimated that nearly 650 children reported missing in towns across Greater Manchester in 2014 were at risk of child sexual exploitation or serious harm. But despite almost 13,000 reports of child sex abuse in the past six years, only about 1,000 people have been convicted. The report's author—Labour MP Ann Coffey—was criticized for failing to address the fact that many street grooming gangs are made up of Muslim men. She said it would be "wrong" to focus on "Asian" gangs targeting teenage girls...."

NOVEMBER.

"... On November 11, the new Muslim owner of the exclusive Bermondsey Square Hotel in London abruptly banned alcohol and pork from the bar and grill at the hotel, in order to run it "in accordance with Sharia law." The £220 ($340)-a-night hotel is believed to be one of the first in the UK to introduce the strict Muslim policy, but staff said the changes have caused business to plummet, with many reservations cancelled.

Also on November 11, it was reported that thousands of Muslim school children in East Lancashire were being offered a pork-based vaccine as part of a major new flu immunization program. The new nasal spray, which is made with gelatin derived from pigs, is part of a pilot project, but Muslim leaders complained that the decision not to offer an alternative was "outrageous" because they consider the spray to be 'haram' or sinful. Public Health England, which is leading the project, said in a statement: "There is no suitable alternative to [the porcine-based] Fluenz [vaccine]."

On November 13, police in Manchester arrested 13 members of human trafficking gang after a pregnant woman was duped into travelling to England before being sold into a sham Sharia law marriage. The 20-year-old Slovakian woman, who was 25 weeks pregnant, was tricked into flying to Luton airport in May believing that she would be able to meet her sister. After meeting a man at the airport who claimed to be her sister's friend, however, she was taken to an address in Oldham. She then discovered that she had been sold to a Muslim man who had paid the gang £15,000 (€19,000; $23,000) to provide her a sham marriage. Police say the purpose of the marriage, which took place under a Sharia ceremony in Rochdale in July, was to improve the man's chances of avoiding deportation from the UK...."

DECEMBER.

"... On December 11, the House of Lords held debates on female genital mutilation [FGM] and the "impact of Sharia Law on the United Kingdom." Lord Faulks, Minister of State for Civil Justice and Legal Policy, cited research that "revealed that approximately 60,000 girls are at risk of FGM in the UK." In the following debate, Baroness Cox said: "The establishment of Sharia courts or councils in this country has promoted the application of gender-discriminatory provisions in ways which are currently causing considerable distress for many women." She also asked why "polygamy is allowed to flourish" in Britain even though bigamy is illegal.

Finally, December saw the launch of the faceless "Deeni Doll," (deeni is Arabic for "faith") which is adorned with a traditional hijab headdress, but has no nose, mouth, or eyes, in order to comply with Islamic rulings regarding the depictions of facial features. The toy, which retails for £25 ($40), was designed by a former teacher at a Muslim school in Lancashire. She said:

"I came up with the idea from scratch after speaking to some parents who were a little concerned about dolls with facial features. Some parents won't leave the doll with their children at night because you are not allowed to have any eyes in the room. There is an Islamic ruling which forbids the depiction of facial features of any kind and that includes pictures, sculptures and, in this case, dolls."

Sunday, December 28, 2014

First an old article, dating from April 2014 already, and the coverage of Sigmar Gabriel, German vice-chancellor, has been interpreted and re-interpreted by critics and supporters of renewable energy alike. Via Wattsupwiththat:

Guest essay by Fred F. Mueller

On April 16th, 2014, a few quite remarkable statements were delivered during a discussion event at the premises of SMA Solar Technology AG, a leading German producer of photovoltaic panels and systems:

“The truth is that the Energy U-Turn (“Energiewende”, the German scheme aimed at pushing the “renewable” share of electricity production to 80 % by 2050) is about to fail”

“The truth is that under all aspects, we have underestimated the complexity of the “Energiewende”

“The noble aspiration of a decentralized energy supply, of self-sufficiency! This is of course utter madness”

“Anyway, most other countries in Europe think we are crazy”

Had this been one of the small albeit growing number of German “sceptics” casting doubt upon the XXL-sized politico-economical scam that has cost the German populace more than € 500 billion since its inception in 2000, it would not have gotten more than a footnote in the local press, crammed somewhere in between “horoscope” and “lost and found”. In fact, the media actually tried to keep a lid on the facts by giving them as little coverage as possible.

But the man at the speaker’s desk was Sigmar Gabriel, acting vice-chancellor of the German government, Secretary of Commerce with responsibility for the said „Energiewende” and chairman of the German social democrats (SPD), the second-largest political force in the country. Since December 2013, he is in charge of taming the runaway costs and growing security of supply risks that are unmasking the financial and technical nightmare of this ill-conceived project. In the past few months, he seems to have gotten some unpleasant insights causing him to admit the above-mentioned inconvenient truths when he was pushed too far by a number of aggressive lobbyists of the “renewable energy” sector. Gabriel, famous for his irascible temper that once already resulted in a heated verbal exchange with a top-dog TV journalist live on air, appears to have become quite candid when he vented his anger during the debate.

He must have realized his own political fate is in jeopardy because the task he has been assigned has conducted him into a situation that will inevitably result in failure. With respect to electric energy generation, Germany has painted itself into a corner. Since the introduction of the “Renewable Energy” law (EEG) in 2000 aimed at replacing coal and gas-fired as well as nuclear power generation by so-called renewable energy sources, the household price for electricity has jumped by more than 200 %. German customers now pay the second-highest electricity prices in Europe. At the same time, the task of stabilizing the grid against the massive erratic influx from solar and wind power plants that produce without regard for actual need has pushed the operators to their limits. Now already, with a combined share of just some 13 % of total electricity production, their unreliable input is massively imperiling the stability of the grid.

Conventional power plants – the most important units able to compensate these detrimental effects – are being pushed out of the market and shuttered at increasing rates. At the same time, Germany’s CO2 output has not diminished because coal-fired units have had to take over from closed nuclear plants. Costs are set to rise further on a ballistic path while security of supply is in free fall. At the same time, Gabriel is subjected to intense pressure from a number of factions of the “renewable” energy sector asking for ever greater slices of a cake that cannot be financed much longer. Together with inconvenient truths about feasibility limits given to him by his technical staff, this pressure seems to have risen to a level that pushed him to lecture his harassers when their clamors transgressed his tolerance limit.

This rare incident where a leading politician loses control of his words to such a degree shows that the “crash boom bang” path the German way of mishandling energy policies has indeed reached a threshold where said politicians feel cornered and unable to uphold their usual “muddling through” approach. Long-ignored financial and technical rules re-emerge and will force the German political class to abandon their “renewable” energy strategy centering on solar and wind power generation. Since the only low CO2 alternative – nuclear power – has been deviled by all political parties and the media beyond any chance of short-term oblivion, Germany will soon have to revert to coal for its power needs. And that in turn implies the country will have to abandon all aspirations to lower its CO2 emissions. German politicians might soon find out that demonizing CO2 is becoming a speedy path to ruining their career. And given the importance of the country within Europe and the pioneering role it claimed in the international crusade against climate change by limiting CO2 emissions, this might well herald the start of a paradigm shift of epochal dimensions in the whole climate change debate.

Then Fast forward to the beginning of December - it's turning ugly. If even Patrick Graichen, Director of Germany's Agora Energiewende thinktank uses words such as "filthy blunder" the sign is on the wall.

“Energiewende” Takes A Massive Blow…Top Green Energy Proponent Concedes: “Blunder With Ugly Consequences”!
By P Gosselin on 9. Dezember 2014
German national weekly DIE ZEIT writes in its latest hard copy edition that one of Europe’s leading green energy thinkers now concedes Germany’s much ballyhooed Energiewende (transition to renewable energies) has been a “filthy blunder”.

Die Zeit 4 Dec 2014

Page 4 of December 4, 2014, edition of DIE ZEIT. “Filthy Blunder”

When the green movement itself makes such an admission, then you know Germany’s once highly ballyhooed Energiewende is truly in deep trouble, if not a basket case.

“Germany will not even come close to reaching targets”

Moreover, DIE ZEIT, an influential publication among Germany’s green centre-left, writes, “Germany will not even come close to reaching its climate target despite the massive investment in wind and solar energies.”

The admission is a massive blow to Germany’s renewable energies movement, whose troubles have long been played down or denied by its proponents.

So what has finally compelled Germany’s top greens to make such an astonishing admission? The facts show that although the Energiewende has led to a rapid expansion of wind and solar energies, it has also led to the unexpected increase in coal-fired power. Renewable energies have had the unintended effect of revitalizing coal as a source of energy. A horror for climate protection activists.

The 180° U-turn begins with Patrick Graichen, Director of the Agora Energiewende thinktank, which according to DIE ZEIT, is “the most influential school of thought for energy policy in Germany“. Graichen himself was formerly responsible for energy at the Federal Ministry of Environment.

Making the air dirtier

The DIE ZEIT feature article explains how Germany’s original plan had been to expand wind and solar so that they would first replace the country’s unwanted nuclear power plants, and then later the filthy coal power plants. The idea was to use natural gas power plants to even out the huge irregularities that come with the weather-dependent solar and wind power. And as green and power grid technology developed further, even gas eventually would be throttled down to a bare minimum, and so Germany would be propelled from being the world’s worst villain to a most loved hero – in less than a 100-year span. That was the dream.

But now green energy dreamers are being rudely awakened, and the reality looks very different. More CO2 is being produced. Die ZEIT writes:

It’s a blunder with ugly consequences. The Energiewende, as it is now set up, is not making the air cleaner, but dirtier.”

The problem, DIE ZEIT explains, is that the coal is much cheaper than natural gas. As a a consequence power generators are opting to even out the green power supply fluctuations with coal power instead of gas. But because coal power plants cannot be driven up and down quickly to respond to fluctuations in supply, power producers no longer even bother throttling them down when too much power is fed in by wind in sun. The coal power plants just keep on humming and emitting anyway – even when the power is not needed. In the end it’s still cheaper than operating gas plants. Result: gas plants are being closed down, coal is coming back.

Grotesque market distortions – negative prices

The requirement to feed in green power and all the extra unneeded coal-fired electricity are now causing grotesque distortions on the electricity markets. To illustrate the perverse market conditions, DIE ZEIT describes the events of Sunday, May 11, 2014, when so much wind and solar power was fed into the grid that the power became worthless on the market and at times caused negative prices on the electricity exchanges, as DIE ZEIT illustrates:

The price on the market fell to nothing. A little later before noon, there was so much green power on the market that the German power companies were paying money to get rid of it. By early afternoon when solar power was flowing plentifully, the so-called negative power price rose to 60 euros per megawatt-hour.”

Negative prices due to an uncontrolled supply into the grid is no longer an isolated event that rarely occurs. DIE ZEIT continues:

And that is no isolated incident; it’s the future of German power production. In the first half of 2014 power prices were negative for 71 hours. But already in just a few years that number could be one thousand hours per year, according to the think tank Energy Brainpool. One quarter of the entire green energy production would be energy garbage.”

Skyrocketing electricity prices for consumers while the price on the exchanges go negative: This has got to be one of the 7 wonders of German energy management.

Outlaw Mike's advice? First STOP subsidizing 'renewable energies'. Windmills and solar panels can never offer more than local niche solutions. Only therein will they be able to hold their own without state subsidies.

The only truly long term solution for humanity is nuclear FUSION. DowneastBlog had an article on that back in 2006 already. If all the money that thanks to Green and Red insanity has evaporated in insane carbon offset Ponzi schemes had been used instead for fusion research we would be much farther down the road. As it stands now we cannot expect the first tangible results before 2025 - and that is by no means certain. I also think it was a mistake going for an international effort, thereby excluding the benefits of competition.

And in the runup to fusion? The first two decades simply continuing using fossil fuel. To that end it will be necessary to effectively counter the CO2 mass hysteria and propaganda.

Within that timeframe develop workable Thorium nuclear reactors. Thorium is available in relatively abundant qualities, it produces less nuclear waste, and is a dead end with regards to producing bomb material.

So, summarized:

a.) 2014-2035: fossil fuel, U235-based nuclear reactors, phasing the latter out as they gradually reach their intended lifespan (fossil fuel reactors should continue to be used however, and let them die off as the subsequent methods of producing energy gain importance)

b.) 2030 ~ 2080? Thorium nuclear reactors

c.) 2060 (?) ~ .....end of history : Fusion reactors

Vwala, Outlaw Mike's plan for sustainable energy production in a nutshell!

Friday, December 26, 2014

The mission of the 6 Belgian F-16s operating against ISIS from a base in Jordan will be prolonged with another six months, till the end of June 2015. Additionally, the army will dispatch some 50 trainers to assist the Iraqi Army, within the framework of the coalition's Building Partner Capacity program.

It's been almost impossible to obtain hard info regarding the effect of the BAF's airstrikes against ISIS. Last thing I heard myself was when the tally was 18 targets hit (solely over Iraq, our jets don't operate over Syria), but that was two months ago. I suspect the sudden radio silence since then has everything to do with not causing grief to Belgium's sizeable muslim community. There is the fact that ISIS enjoys a tremendous lot of support from our, ahem, well-integrated muslim brethren, a fact easily verifiable online, plus of course Belgium is one of the top European countries per capita to dispatch would be ISIS rambos to Syria and Iraq. So news of our jets vaporizing some target of their champions might lead the more excitable among them to, say, plow a van into an infidel crowd gathered at some Chistmas Fair in one of our cities. Just guessing.

Anyway, I assume our pilots are still continuing the daily two-plane missions. Below you see a recent video shot from a French Armée de l'Air C-135FR tanker resupplying a BAF F-16AM somewhere over Iraq. The jet's ordnance consists of a GBU-12 Laser Guided Bomb and a GBU-38 JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition). There's also two AIM-120 AMRAAMs (Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles) and two AIM-9 Sidewinder IR-guided AA missiles, though I can't see the rationale for carrying such an impressive AA armament in a ground attack operation.

The video also shows a French E3-F AWACS being refueled by the same C-135FR. France's ageing fleet of these planes, which are used in the dual role of tanker plane/transport, will be replaced with Airbus A400M's and A330 MRTT's (Multi Role Tanker Transports).

Now for the bad news. Belgium's small but nevertheless not insignificant presence in international military operations hides an extremely unpleasant truth, namely the intention of the current supposedly center-right government to cut the Defense Budget even more to an appalling and totally irresponsible 0.5 per cent of GDP.

I wrote 'supposedly center-right' because that's what it is, the current government under PM Charles Michel (MR) is first and foremost center-right by perception only. It does indeed plan austerity measures but is not truly committed to reduce the country's core problem: the overwhelming size of the state. The government's approach to the crisis remains just as Keynesian as your run of the mill socialist counterpart. On a population of 11 million, about 1.1 million persons are on the government payroll in one capacity or another. Of every 100 EUR spent in Belgium, reportedly 54 or so are being spent via the State's channels. THIS, together with an insane immigration policy, is what is killing our country's economy. Belgium's entrepreneurs and a small intellectual elite of bright engineers and scientists, together with a by and large first-class but ageing workforce in the ever more shrinking private sector, keep the country from sinking. Every day they are succesfully waging their battles against an ever more usurping government, but all of them are like winning generals in a losing war. The only decent strategy to counter the country's demise would be for the state to completely stop hiring employees and not replacing them when they retire, until there are at least 300,000 less compared to the current level. Furthermore an immediate stop to immigration from muslim countries.

Neither will happen, which is why Belgium, like the rest of Europe, will slowly continue its inevitable decline. Despite the best efforts of the private sector, if nothing happens, our economy will share a fate comparable to that of cement and aggregate in a concrete mixer of which the revolving drum turns ever more slowly: ever more regulations and an ever growing state budget will finally cause the whole shebang to seize up.

Against this backdrop, our small military is setting an example of efficiency, virtually the sole one wherever an effort by the State is on display. Now operating on less than a shoestring budget and with the insane prospect of seeing its budget shrink to even less than the one provided for that old bottomless pit of Development Aid, small miracles are still being performed. Our jets are still capable of destroying islamic terrorists thousands of miles away from home, while others help providing aircover over the Baltic Republics; our frigates take part in successful anti-piracy operations off Somalia; and our troops are helping in peacekeeping operations throughout Africa, demining operations in Lebanon, and training missions as far apart as Congo, Benin, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The BNS Leopold I inspecting a suspicious vessel off the Somali coast during the so-called Operation Atalanta.

The irresponsibility and ignorance of the current crop of young Belgian ministers, in the federal as well as in the regional governments (Michel, De Croo, Schauvlieghe, Geens et al) is breathtaking. In an international geopolitical context that is literally screaming for normal nations to augment their defense budgets, this crew sees fit to instead lower its commitment to.... just 25 per cent of common NATO standard. By contrast, up north, in The Netherlands, they have seen the sign on the wall and the MoD's budget there will again be augmented to 2 per cent of GDP. Admittedly, this decision was possibly spurred by the downing of the Malaysia airliner over the Ukraine this summer by a missile delivered by Putin, a tragedy which cost the lives of some 200 Dutch citizens.

But then this appalling example should have been just as clear a message to our politicians: that the world has not become safer over the past years.

The Belgian government's nonsensical decision to decapitate its military is also a clear sign of the total absence of common sense with regards to the growing domestic threat to our native population. And by that I not only mean the danger from terrorist attacks. Any level-headed politican with a minimal grasp of history should be able to foresee the grave threat to the autochton population posed by Belgium's muslim community, with its runaway demographics. Like in every country where the muslim majority at some point reaches a critical treshold - and this treshold may be well below the 50 per cent mark - a civil war is practically a given.

Indeed, a responsible government should quietly prepare TODAY for the eventuality of 2040, to spare the native population as well as the productive part of our immigrants the fate that has befallen so many in countries where islam began roaring its ugly head. My mom's sister runs a B & B in Bruges, and last month there was an affluent Lebanese couple with children among their guests. The man, a maronite Christian, started to bemoan the fate of his beloved Lebanon, which in his young days, when the ratio Christians/Muslims was along 70/30 per cent lines, was rightly considered the Switzerland of the Middle East. These days, he told my mom's sister and her friend, the population ratios had reversed, "and look at what Lebanon has become". Had I been present, I would have pressed on with questions because, according to R. and B., the man was clearly in a talking mood. B. however, my aunt's friend, cut the communication short with a no-brainer like that 'he respected the guest's view but was in no place to take sides'... after which his Lebanese guest politely refrained from continuing.

Anyway, similar mechanisms as have played out in Lebanon and in Europe's own backyard in the nineties are right now on full display in yet other countries, most notably in western Africa. In Nigeria e.g., muslims have been outbreeding the Christians for decades. To be sure, Islam's ascent in this potentially very rich country has throughout history been borne just as well by several jihads, most notably the one against the Hausa rulers in the early nineteenth century. A further factor has ironically been colonialism, which allowed muslims in the north freedom of movement and religion, which they used to travel south and establish footholds there, while the very nature of islam itself prohibited any such development by Christians in the south vectored towards the north. Anyway, whatever factors have borne the rise of islam in Nigeria, the fact remains that muslims now outnumber Christians, with all the expected consequences.

The Nigerian government can perhaps be excused for not having the resources to protect its citizens against the beasts of Boko Haram, who are quite literally tearing the country, once one of the richest of the continent, apart.

My oh my those poor Fwench, they seem to have a sudden bout of Funny In The Headism lately. A Frenchman attacked police officers in a precinct in Joue-les-Tours last Saturday with a knife and was subsequently shot down. On Sunday, another Frenchman rammed his car in groups of people in several locations in Dijon, ultimately wounding 13. Frenchman #3 on Monday plowed his van in a crowd of people on a Christmas Market in Nantes. And just today, Frenchman #4 was arrested as he approached Nice's Forville market, armed with, amongst others, two pump action shotguns.

BUT DO NOT WORRY, this has all nothing to do with terrorism, all these poor people are simply suffering from "mental illness", there's absolutely no reason to link this to terrorism, and certainly not to islamic terrorism, even though all these fine upstanding citizens were hollering "Allahu Akbar"!

"~Is it relevant that Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley is a Muslim? Maybe not. But it isn't so irrelevant that every news outlet (including Fox) has to be quite so cautious about mentioning it at all. Newsday, one of the few papers that did, reported the view of Robert Boyce, the NYPD's Chief of Detectives:

Boyce said Brinsley had no gang affiliation or tattoos. His family is Muslim but the NYPD found no indication that he was religious or that the slaying was motivated by religion. He said the family said he never manifested "any radicalization."

So the preferred explanation is mental illness:

The shooter may have had an undiagnosed mental illness, according to his family, and may have been on medication "later on in life," Boyce said in a briefing in Manhattan. But he said he had no official reports of any mental illness.

Indeed. In fact, there's less hard evidence for any mental illness than there is for "radicalization", at least to the extent that Brinsley appears to have posted on his Facebook page the Koranic soundbite about "striking fear into the enemies of Allah". Nevertheless, the preferred explanation is that Brinsley was mentally ill, just like the guy who beheaded a coworker in Oklahoma was mentally ill, and the Sydney bloke who took those hostages at the coffee shop was mentally ill, and the son of the Canadian Refugee Board honcho who killed a soldier at the Canadian War Memorial was mentally ill. They were also all Muslim. Oh, and the fellow in France who ran down 11 people with his car while shouting "Allahu Akbar!" only yesterday has already been pronounced mentally ill. By sheer coincidence, he was Muslim, too.

Is this one of those parlor games - like "Dead or Canadian?" Or "Gay or European?" Don't forget, if you're playing in the western media's daily Nothing-to-See-Here quiz, in the "Crazy or Muslim?" round the correct answer is "Crazy", every time.

These are not mutually incompatible categories: There are dead Canadians, and gay Europeans, and crazy Muslims. To get people to march in the streets shouting "What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!" is relatively easy. To persuade Al Sharpton's swaggering halfwit goons to act on their slogans is another matter. A person has to be suggestible, and there's an accumulation of evidence that in today's world disaffected young Muslim men are the most easily suggestible of all. Whether they're suggestible because they're Muslim or they're Muslim because they're suggestible is one of those chicken-or-egg conundrums."

Happy thoughts to you, and remember, it's got nothing to do with islam. It's just "mental illness", sez Manuel Valls, Fwench PM. And to make sure the mental illnesses are kept under control, the Fwench Army will now deploy heavily armed soldiers in the streets. Thank you, politicians! Thank you thank you thank you!!!

"A record 17,000 anti-Islamic protesters rallied for their tenth demonstration in as many weeks Monday in eastern Germany, celebrating the rise of their far-right populist movement by singing Christmas carols.

Germany has for weeks grappled with the emergence of the "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident" or PEGIDA, whose ranks in the city of Dresden have swelled rapidly from just a few hundred in October.

About 4,500 counter-demonstrators marched through the city under the slogan "Dresden Nazi-free", warning that there was no space for racism and xenophobia in the country that perpetrated the Holocaust.

Most PEGIDA followers insist they are not Nazis but patriots who worry about the "watering down" of their Christian-rooted culture and traditions. They often accuse mainstream political parties of betraying them and the media of lying.

Braving cold and wet weather, they gathered outside the historic Semperoper concert hall for their pre-Christmas recital. Police put their numbers at about 17,500, up from the previous high of 15,000 a week earlier...."

There's something stirring in Germany, and it does not bode well for the followers of the prophet (piss, excrement and vomit be showered upon him in healthy doses).

That is not to say this is the end; nor the beginning of the end; nor even the end of the beginning. This because Europe is, I fear, already too far down the slippery demographic slope to turn this thing around peacefully. Demography is more difficult to turn around than a rudderless oil tanker, and 40 ~ 50 years of deliberate "people-changing" by the leftist and green lunatics has electrified a Frankenstein Monster of islamization that possibly cannot be eliminated anymore, except perhaps through civil war. Throughout history, EVERY host nation that has been so foolish to admit muslims has experienced either civil war or relentless submission to the parasite becoming the master.

Upon not even so close examination this harsh truth is so utterly irrefutable that it is unbelievable that politicians and media still get away with peddling the same old endless lies. The most prominent person in Germany to do so last week was Chancellor Angela Merkel, who "has cautioned Germans against falling prey to any form of xenophobic "rabble-rousing" - a statement for which she actually deserves to be slapped - mildly, but slapped anyway - across the face. The childless Frau Merkel, unwittingly the most prominent example on display of Germany's demographic deathride, is, besides Chancellor, also the face of German Christian Democrats, or should we rather make that "Christian" "Democrats". As such, she would do better to use her verbal power to denounce the gruesome prosecution of her "fellow" Christians the world over, who are suffering daily under the horrible yoke of islamic supremacism. Indeed, Christianity has replaced Judaism as the world's most persecuted religion, and the silence of German muslims vis-à-vis this horrible, undeniable fact is telling.

That silence is a foreboding of what awaits German Christians, and Germans as a whole, once the muslim minority becomes a majority.
.
It's not that there are no stern warnings given against just such a scenario, even by people who have firsthand info. In 2012 e.g., DowneastBlog sported a post featuring Anba Damian, General Bishop of the German Coptic Church, and if you follow this link, you can check out the video in which Bishop Damian warns Germans against precisely the fate that has befallen Egypts Copts.

And while I have no use for hooligans, I shall not deny that I welcome the arrival on the scene of yet another group, HogeSa, for Hooligans gegen Salafisten. They may not be cute, but the time for such considerations has come and gone. We have almost come to the point that every warm body that's opposed to the islamization of our lands is welcome - even if we have to cope with some unpleasant whiff.

PEGIDA, HogeSa, ProDeutschland, NPD, Die Freiheit.... it is no coincidence that Europes most powerful anti-muslim movements are German. At some point this political militancy may morph into a military stance - and I have a very, very healthy respect for German military prowess. Certainly, and very unfortunately, in the not so distant past a peculiar brand of German socialism recognized that power also, and abused it for their evil ends. But in the service of a noble ideal: the defense of the "Abendland" against a gruesome and treacherous desert cult, German military power may well be Europes last trump card.

Monday, December 22, 2014

"...Sweden, during its September 2014 parliamentary election, voted in a new government. But whom exactly did the people of Sweden elect to run their new government? In a recent (albeit un-sourced) blog, Ilya Meyer, the deputy chair of the Sweden-Israel Friendship Association, shed some light on the backgrounds and motivations of some of Sweden's new cabinet ministers. A few individuals stand out.

The Minister for Housing and Urban Development is the Turkish Swede Mehmet Kaplan, who was aboard the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara, of the Turkish extremist Humanitarian Relief Foundation, when it tried to break through the legal Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza coastline. Israel had established the naval blockade in 2007 in response to the smuggling of weapons into Gaza to arm the terrorist group Hamas, which is outspokenly dedicated to exterminating Israel.

Kaplan has also stated that young European Muslims who are joining the "Islamic State" [IS] in Syria and Iraq are nothing to worry about, and are just similar to Swedish fighters who joined the Finns in WW2 to fight the Soviet Union. He has also claimed at the same time that the main reason young European Muslims are joining the Islamic State is "Western Islamophobia."

Sweden's Minister of Education, Gustav Fridolin, was arrested in Israel in 2003 for allegedly blocking the construction of Israel's security barrier in the West Bank, where he has engaged in protests alongside the International Solidarity Movement – an organization that "recognizes armed struggle as the right of Palestinian Arabs."

Sweden's Minister of Interior, Ardalan Shekarabi, who is also responsible for Domestic Law and Order, is a former illegal immigrant from Iran who defied a Swedish deportation order in 1989 by going into hiding. Shekarabi is also known for embezzling state funds for an integration project to aid in his reelection as leader of the Social-Democratic Youth Party.

Sweden's Minister for Culture and Democracy, Alice Bah Kuhnke is a hard-line feminist known for threatening to cut off funds to organizations that oppose honor killings if any of those funds went to men working against honor killings. As a feminist, it seems as if she wants only women to receive these funds.

These are not merely parliamentarians, these are ministers.

Not surprisingly, one of the first actions of this new government was the recognition of the Palestinian State, a move considered as illegal as it was odd: the Palestinians do not yet meet the requirements for statehood, and seem not even to have agreed on even what the borders of their state should be...."

Let's take a closer look at just two of these Swedish "top" ministers:

Ardalan Shekarabi, Swedish Minister of Interior, responsible for Domestic Law and Order. Former illegal immigrant, embezzled state funds. The country of Sweden is in the best of hands!

Gustav Fridolin, hardcore leftist. Check out a 2008 post of Gates of Vienna on this creep. I would NOT entrust this asshat with teaching tricks to my dog, even if I had one. But in Sweden, he's Minister for Education. Poor, poor Swedish children.

As leftists all over the West are continuing to deliberately destroy our countries and our children's future, they...

... should be made aware that the price for collaboration with the enemy is...

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Via the inimitable and indispensable site 'Observatoire de l'Islamisme', a video about the many French mayors openly courting islamic extremists. If you follow this link, the site offers you the possibility to buy the book 'Ces maires qui courtisent l'Islamisme':

"...Manuel Valls has inaugurated the Grand Mosque of Cergy, built on a piece of land owned by the socialist city council, and charging said mosque a ridiculous amount for it. The Cergy mosque's imam openly defends the Muslim Brotherhood....

....

...in Nantes, the [socialist] city council contributed in financing the Islamic Institute, French Branch, of the Muslim Brotherhood, the UOIF, tot the tune of 200,000 EUR in 2009. The mayor at the time was Jean-Marc Ayrault [note: Ayrault, of the Parti Socialiste, was French Prime Minister under Hollande until 31 March 2014].

Did not Manuel Valls [note: Manuel Valls, of the Parti Socialiste, is current French PM] speak out in favor of publicly financing mosques on several occasions?

Alain Juppé [former French PM, supposedly center-right] is telling everyone who wants to hear it "that he will do everything to offer muslims in Bordeaux a terrain for constructing Bordeaux' Grand Mosque. Imam Tareq Oubrou, a leading character among Bordeaux' muslims, is openly boasting of his membership of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which the Supreme Guide wishes "to control Europe".

Paris, struggling with a debt of 400 million EUR, nevertheless has found 16 million EUR for its Islamic Institute...."

I sincerely hope these traitors will one day meet their deserved fate.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

First The Smiths with There is a light that never goes out. From their third album The Queen is dead (1986).

I really liked The Smiths' music. Make that 'like'. Guess I wasn't alone here in Belgium in their heyday. I always mused however how they were perceived in the UK itself. 'Cause with us non-native English speakers, it's the music first that we notice, the lyrics only afterwards. Whereas with Anglosaxons it's prolly the other way round, and The Smiths' lyrics, and especially Morrisey's voice, seem to be a like it or hate it thing. I vividly recall a conversation in autumn 87 in Paris between me and my longtime pal Michaël B. and two English girls whom we had met in, of all places, Notre Dame Cathedral. Upon telling them I liked The Smiths they both expressed instant disgust!

Then Oasis with Whatever. A 1994 single.

Never had much use for the arrogant Gallagher brothers, but they did make some good music.

I wrote "surpassing" because that's only if you adjust for purchasing power in both countries, using the so-called PPP metric (Purchasing Power Parity). In that case, according to the IMF, China will have a PPP-relative GDP of 17.632 Trillion dollars, whereas the US's will be 17.416 trillion. Not adjusted for PPP, there's still a big chasm between the two countries, as all people with a healthy, no-nonsense gut feeling about economy will suspect. But still, the evolution is undeniable...

... as well as unavoidable, since China's economy is becoming more free market, more capitalistic by the day, whereas the US economy is becoming ever more regulatory, more socialistic.

The goon in the WH promised change, and Americans are getting change indeed.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

We're talking about a woman here, no less. Or at least a creature that came on this world equipped as such. Since that fateful day, she's morphed into this:

So what's this about? I'll try to keep it succinct and to the point.

Three years ago, after the longest government formation in Belgium ever - probably in the entire world - two young supposedly centrist and/or center-right assholes, Wouter Beke from the "Christian" "Democrats" and Alexander De Croo, from the "Flemish" "Liberals", were instrumental in installing Elio Di Rupo, the Parti Socialiste's bigshot, on the seat of Belgian Prime Minister. This to the detriment of the N-VA and its leader Bart De Wever, supposedly also center-right, but regarded by our moral superiors as a Vlaams Belang Lite variant. Which it is not, but more about that later.

The tenure of Mr Di Rupo and his socialist-infested government predictably turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, with a.o. catastrophic job losses.

So the May 2014 elections resulted in a Big Win for the N-VA.

De Wever, a skilled strategist, pulled the strings and managed to fabricate an N-VA - Open VLD - MR coalition. Open VLD are the "Flemish" "Liberals", MR the Walloon "Liberals".

In Belgium, no other party than the Vlaams Belang is truly rightwing, but the PC crowd and their lackeys in the media and the educational system have done a good job at convincing the Great Unwashed that this government, this NVA_OpenVLD_MR coalition, is rightwing.

Even so, we have been having a soi-disant center-right government for the last couple of months, entirely WITHOUT SOCIALISTS. No Flemish socialists, no Walloon socialists. And this is a fairly unique situation in Belgium.

The will of the people you know. It's something called 'democracy'.

But BOY, them socialists DON'T LIKE IT.

So they've been organizing strikes for three weeks now. First at the provincial level, and last Monday nationwide.

It has become clear they've got actually rather little leverage in the private sector.

But UNFORTUNATELY, they do have serious leverage in public transport, in the ports, in the educational system.

Their efforts to paralyze the country should not be seen as a serious attempt to negotiate with the government about the austerity measures, but as a childish act of vengeance for not being part of the government.

Yes, basically that's what they are most angry about. Sad losers that they are, the leftists are NOT AMUSED at having been shoved aside in the most recent election.

That's why everybody has to feel it.

That's why on quite a lot of industrial estates, they have been setting up roadblocks at the entrances, not manned with people who actually worked there, but by Union goons.

That's why, while for themselves they claim the right to go on strike - which is okay for me - THEY DENY OTHERS THE RIGHT TO WORK.

And that's why a Union Troll like Madame Raymonde Le Lepvrier, secretary of a Namur chapter of the socialist union SETCa, part of the larger FGTB organisation, last Monday stormed in a fashion mall and started throwing expensive clothing around in the presence of the shop owner and her personnel, who had been willing to show up.

And that's why "Madame" Le Lepvrier threatened the shopkeeper that if she did not close the shop, she would turn the entire business in a ruin.

Her idea being that if THEY, the Socialists, decide not to work (which is an oxymoron since not working is basically their modus operandi under all circumstances), THEN NOBODY WILL WORK.

All of this may seem small beer to the terrible turmoil everywhere in the world - and it is - but all the same, it's the same destructive force that is to blame for a large part, perhaps the largest part, of the world's ills that is on display here - Socialism. The "philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, with as its inherent virtue the equal sharing of misery."

Sunday, December 14, 2014

A smack in your face video by Bill Whittle that teaches us a thing or two about how leftists are prepared to lie, cheat, and ruin normal citizens' lives in order to further their 'progressive' agenda.

.... and one of those things is indeed the Tawana Bradley Case, which was a hoax set up in 1987 by this at the time 15-year old African-American girl who, in order to escape punishment from her mother and stepfather, faked a rape at the hands of six white males, one of them a police officer, of which she had supposedly been a victim.

Sure, what catches your eyes immediately is that already back then, this hideous creature of an Al Sharpton was at the forefront of efforts to turn this into a nationwide hatefest.

But apart from that wholly expected fact, take Tawana Bradley herself.

A closer look at her background and surroundings reveals how utterly familiar the story of her life sounds for those aware of the massive problem that is the Destruction of the Black Family. Even at a younger age (than 15) she had been spending 'nights with boys'. She 'ran away from home sometimes'. She had been arrested for shoplifting. She was beaten not only by her mother, Glenda, but also by her stepfather, notice that, her STEPfather, a Ralph King (one would start to wonder if there are any normal black households left in the United States). That stepfather had a violent past which included stabbing his first wife 14 (fourteen) times, and later shooting and killing her. At one point he was also overheard talking about his stepdaughter 'in a sexualised manner'. To top it all off, earlier on the day Tawana Bradley went missing, she had skipped school to visit her boyfriend, Todd Buxton. This character was at the time serving a six-month jail sentence! And so on, and so on, and so on.

Is it any wonder that young black people remain stuck in the gutter when they have to grow up in such hellish surroundings?

But do we get to know all this? Of course not! It's all whitey's fault!!!

While Bill Whittle makes a convincing case for the New Barbarians, Mark Steyn does a similar exercise, partly using the same evidence, for what I would call the New Victimhood:

"...If you're not fortunate enough to have a great-great-great-grandmother who's listed as Cherokee in the online transcription of an 1894 marriage application, what do you do? Lena Dunham is an upper-middle-class child of white privilege who's had a charmed life, but she's a victim, too. According to her new memoir, she was raped by "Barry", the token conservative at Oberlin. The real-life Barry the Conservative denies raping her, and Random House has been forced to issue a statement "regretting the confusion" and to cover his legal bills, which he'd been paying for by "crowd-funding". The publisher couldn't resist a parting sneer:

* We are offering to pay the fees Mr. Minc has billed his client to date. Our offer will allow Mr. Minc and his client to donate all of the crowd-funding raised to not-for-profit organizations assisting survivors of rape and sexual assault.

Because even if Barry the Conservative never raped Lena Dunham, odds are he's raped someone else, right? As Ann Coulter put it:

How about donating it to organizations that assist survivors of false rape accusations?

Rather than an epidemic of campus rape, there seems to be some sort of psychological inversion of "white flight", in which untold numbers feel the need to flee their bland middle-class suburbs and pitch up in edgier ghettos. You'll have noticed the recent uptick in news of the transgendered - indeed, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, author of the now discredited University of Virginia gang-rape story, was previously reporting on the epidemic of trans rape (Ms Erdely appears to be the Rape Correspondent of Rolling Stone). I note there are some three times as many male-to-female transgenders as there are female-to-male. So all that "gender fluidity" is a vast net transfer from the male brutalizer sector to the female victim sector. At some point it would seem likely to become a flood. After all, it's not so difficult to imagine, a fake gang-rape story or three down the line, elite universities requiring gender reassignment as a condition of continued male admission. In some sense, the swollen ranks of the transgendered seem to have intuited that the jig is up for guys. Might as well check out of the guy business entirely. I'm thinking of pitching Marvel Comics a new superhero group featuring a transwoman, an ambigender, a pangender, an intergender, a bigender and a 2-spirited called Ex-Men.

We are all ex-men now. The sadly misnamed Cavalier Daily of Charlottesville has a highly non-cavalier story about how "Jackie", the "victim" of the University of Virginia "gang" "rape", is owed a debt of gratitude for "pulling back the curtain on rape":

* Jackie, a University student, told Rolling Stone magazine seven men — one of whom she worked with as a lifeguard at the Aquatic and Fitness Center — raped her at a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity party on September 28, 2012.

The fraternity has since disputed Jackie's story, claiming there was no party on that particular date and that no Phi Kappa Psi brother worked at the Aquatic and Fitness Center at that time. The conflicting accounts have stirred controversy on Grounds and in the national media.

"I felt people were fixating on the details and quality of Rolling Stone reporting, and the fact is, whatever happened, something happened to Jackie," Mirza said. "And even if she made up the story, things like this do happen, and there are sexual assaults that don't get reported, so I meant to bring the focus back to Jackie. Whatever comes of this, we're still behind her and we still think she did something brave by coming forward."

"Even if she made up the story", she "pulled back the curtain on rape". And even if there was no rape going on behind the curtain she raised awareness of how rape culture is so prevalent that women are being traumatized into making up stories that they've been gang-raped by seven Phi Kappa Psi men even when they haven't been. The blogger Oliver Willis thinks it's "super dangerous" that the right is seizing on the implosion of Rolling Stone's story to insist that "all rape allegations can be ignored". But isn't it the left that's trivializing real rape by according fake rape the same protected status? After all, if Jackie is incredibly "brave" for "coming forward" to "pull back the curtain" on something that never happened, if "gang rape" no longer requires either rape or a gang, if it is not necessary to have actually been attacked, brutalized and sexually violated in order to be a rape victim, then what's the big deal if one has been?

My old Spectator comrade Theodore Dalrymple once observed:

Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

The less it corresponds to reality the better - if the purpose is to humiliate, and force you to acquiesce in the lies. As Virginia's Professor James W Ceaser wrote:

Anyone who expressed reserve about the article or who dared to apply the adjective "alleged" to the acts described faced the charge of being indifferent to sexual violence and rape. The penalty was to be written out of the community. Best, one observer cautioned, not to poke the beast... The president of the university, Teresa Sullivan, made clear where the initiative lay: "I want you to know that I have heard you, and that your words have enkindled this message."

What she and they are, in fact, enkindling is reality: They are setting fire to truth, and justice, and civilization. There are plenty of real rape victims out there - the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, the sex slaves of ISIS, the children of Rotherham - but they're useless to the lynch mob in advancing its goals and so nothing can "enkindle" their stories. But don't worry, the next pseudo-victim will be along any moment:

Then flash'd the living Lightnings from her Eyes,
And Screams of Horror rend th' affrighted Skies.
Not louder Shrieks to pitying Heav'n are cast,
When Husbands, or when Lapdogs breathe their last.

Ah, Lena Dunham! Last week I wrote about how this leftist cunt had overnight become De Standaard's new progressive heroine! Well, it appears De Standaard is a l'il backtracking! Suddenly Lena the Edgy Girl, 'loved by everyone in Antwerp', ain't that edgy anymore, and prolly a few of the 600,000 or so Antwerpians have gone AWOL when it comes to loving her. Check out their 'story':

Translation:

"EXCERPT IN LENA DUNHAM'S BOOK BEING REDACTED.

Lena Dunham's debut keeps causing mayhem. A paragraph in 'Not that kind of girl', in which she's writing about indecent sexual behaviour of a co-student, caused trouble for a person of the same name. This error is being redacted in future prints, published Random House communicated to the American website The Wrap..."

My oh my, what polished bullshit! 'Indecent sexual behaviour of a co-student'. The Belgian peasants obviously should remain unaware that Miz Dunham specifically mentioned a 'mustachioed Republican by the name of Barry', the 'resident Conservative at Oberlin'. In other words, it was a deliberate attempt to discredit rightwingers. Now, you can AB-SO-LU-TE-LY be sure that De Standaard's editors knowthis. They know that the person Lena Dunham winked at was a rightwinger. But that's a crucial fact they omit. Oh, it was just a 'person of the same name'. That said person, 'Barry One', a family man with kids, risked grave personal and professional damage because of Dunham's false accusations - don't matter. Doesn't matter to De Standaard. Their message has been delivered. Next fake story that confirms Rightwingers are eeeeeeeevil, racist, nasty people if you please.

Whittle with the New Barbarism, Steyn with the New Professional Victimhood, that cunt Lena Dunham, where was I?

I can't express my disgust and utter disappointment over the behaviour of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and in fact, the entire GOP top brass bar a few braves, any better than John Hawkins over at Townhall:

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP IN CONGRESS.

"...While it would certainly be cathartic to flog the GOP for the lousy omnibus bill House Republicans just passed, it seems more productive to tackle a bigger issue. After a historic, yet unearned (Obama was the real GOP MVP) election victory, isn’t it time for the Republican leadership to try to heal the rift with the base that’s tearing the party apart?

Do Republican leaders REALLY want to spend the next two years of a presidential election cycle getting trashed the way they are right now by activists, Tea Party leaders and radio talk show hosts? Anyone who thinks the base is going to sit down and shut up or that the GOP can thrive over the long-term with this kind of intra-party feuding going on is kidding himself.

So realistically, here’s what the Republican Party leaders need to do to help get everyone back on the same page.

1) They should never, ever, under any circumstances trash their base again. That means if the words "Tea Party, "Senate Conservatives Fund," "Mark Levin," “Rush Limbaugh,” “Club for Growth,” “Heritage Action,” etc., etc., come out of their mouths, then they better be saying something nice at best or neutral at worst. Additionally, staffers who mouth off about the base should be unceremoniously fired. At first, Republican politicians shouldn’t expect to have that favor to be returned, but if you’re a politician who wants unconditional love, go buy a dog.

2) The GOP has to keep its promises -- and quite frankly, more than a few Republicans seem to have a pre-YouTube era mentality about that. They think they can say anything they want on the campaign trail and then do something completely different in the office without people being any the wiser. For example, after the NRSC backed Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio, I fought it tooth-and-nail over that decision. After he won, Marco Rubio was one of my favorite politicians, but the moment he lied to us by breaking his campaign pledge to fight amnesty, he was dead to me. I will NEVER forgive Rubio for his dishonorable behavior, no matter what he does. Don’t lie through your teeth to people who took you at your word and then expect us to be stupid enough to trust you again.

....

4A) A few years back, Republicans in leadership did reach out a bit and while it may have helped a little, it ultimately wasn’t very effective because they looked at it as a way to try to sell what they were doing instead of having a conversation about shared goals. A lot of people, myself included, suspect the reason this isn't done is because we don't have the same aims on a lot of major legislation any more. I don't think the GOP leaders have any intention of seriously trying to stop Obama’s executive amnesty. I don't believe they're committed to the repeal of Obamacare. I was even forced to agree with NANCY PELOSI and ELIZABETH WARREN (vomit) about the GOP’s omnibus bill decision to make it easier for big banks to gamble with derivatives and the sleazy campaign finance reform that was designed to undercut activist groups. Would the GOP leadership really want to explain something like that beforehand? Ultimately, it wouldn’t be that hard to get grassroots leaders to line up behind smart strategies to achieve conservative policy goals, but it’s an open question whether the GOP’s leadership believes in the Republican Party’s own platform enough to fight for it anymore.

5) Speaking of fights, the GOP leaders need to prove they're willing to fight and WIN on something that really matters to conservatives. At this point, the expectation of the Democrats, the mainstream media and even the GOP base is that the Republican Party is going to cave in every time. At some point, Republicans have to prove they can go head-to-head with the Democrats and win on something that matters. Of course, congressional aides could probably name 10 things that people don't care about that much where they’d claim to have "fought and won," but that’s like a football team that’s behind 70-0 complaining it isn’t being given enough credit for all the 1st downs it’s gotten in the game.

6) People feel so burned by Boehner and McConnell that it would take AN INCREDIBLE amount of work for them to ever be trusted again. If someone like Jeb Hensarling took over in the House or John Thune took over in the Senate, he’d immediately get a much longer leash from the base because he’d be given the benefit of the doubt while people evaluated his performance. On the other hand, when it comes to Boehner and McConnell, symbolic gestures aren't going to cut it because we’re at a Cold War level of trust. It doesn’t matter how much Castro tells you he loves democracy and freedom; you’ll believe it AFTER Cuba has a free election.

Last but not least, there's toxic residue in this area that goes all the way back to the end of Bush’s first term that has never been addressed by the GOP leadership in an effective manner. There are a lot of conservatives who feel like they've been SCREAMING at the GOP for a decade and haven't been respected or heard. As long as the GOP leadership insists on maintaining a system where the only way conservative activists can make an impact is by raining hell down on the GOP leaders, they better keep a lot of ice water handy because that’s exactly what they’re going to continue to get.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

It was hardcore leftists, the North Vietnamese communists, who violated the Paris Peace Accords.

It was 'softcore' leftists, the Democrats, who cut off funding for the South Vietnamese government.

Even so, South Korea might have been able to resist its evil northern brother. But in contrast to the US's unilateral retreat once the Dems controlled Congress, North Vietnam's powerful communist allies, the USSR and China, kept pouring troops, logistical support and all kinds of military hardware inside North Vietnam.

The result was the collapse of South Vietnam, the Boat People, hundreds of thousands in re-education camps, a decade of American efforts and terrible bloodletting for nothing ... and the installment of a communist dictatorship yielding power from Hanoi to Saigon... a dictatorship that exists to this day.

Thanks but no thanks, Demonrats.

Why this post now?

Simple. We risk seeing history repeated. Iraq's government is corrupt and in the long term it may turn out that islam is truly and really a system humanity must either wipe out or starve to death if it is to be released from its burden. As long as there is no definitive proof of that, Iraq must be supported and given a chance to serve as a breeding ground, a dreadfully barren one, admitted, for democracy and for transformation of islam into at least something harmless to the other belief systems and societal models with which it shares this world.

This is a process which may indeed take hundreds of years. You can't undo 1,400 years of wrongheadedness in a mere couple of decades.

So we must keep supporting Iraq. Just as the US should have kept supporting South Vietnam (which was itself far from an ideal democracy, but still very preferable to its northern sibling).

This post also serves as a reminder that Democrats don't give a jolt about the lives of American soldiers. They were willing to reduce the sacrifice of 50,000 plus American troops and a multitude of maimed and wounded to naught for the sake of their immoral political agenda.

They are willing to do that AGAIN. We have been able to witness that this week, with the shameful release of Feinstein's 'report' regarding CIA operations in the WOT.

Sunday, December 07, 2014

Don't you just LOVE it, De Standaard has found a new heroine in the person of Lena Dunham! Check it out:

The caption reads "I HAVE OFTEN THOUGHT OF LEAVING AMERICA".

"Television maker Lena Dunham clashes with conservative America, but in Antwerp everybody loves her. How an 'edgy girl' got to be loved by everybody."

I'll spare you the nauseating bias and the umpteenth effort to depict Republicans and conservatives in the US as some kind of moronic subhumans who, oh, oppose Obamacare because a.) Obama is black, and/or b.) they just love letting the old and sick die in the gutter and/or c.) rejoice in their 'War on Women' or or or, etc etc etc. We've heard all that before. Point is, the gullible reader in Belgistan, relying for his news on De Standaard, isscrewed again, because all he gets is such a one-sided picture and one so devoid of nuance and facts that next to it, the Pravda is exact science.

Now for some stuff Korneel Vandenbossche will never risk of coming across if he continues swallowing De Standaard drivel. First some revelations about Madam Dunham from The Daily Mail:

"'FLAMBOYANT REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVE' WHO LENA DUNHAM CLAMS RAPED HER IN COLLEGE 'DOES NOT EXIST', NEW REPORT CLAIMS.

Actor, 28, alleges that she was raped at Oberlin College in her memoir Not That Kind Of Girl
Media investigation at the Ohio campus found no proof of the man she describes in the book as her alleged attacker
Named as 'Barry', one man who somewhat fits the description says he has never met Dunham
Dunham has been accused of being 'grossly irresponsible' in publishing the claim
She did not report the incident to authorities

A media investigation into the allegations of rape featured in Lena Dunham's recently-released memoir has refuted the claims of sexual assault made by the Girls creator.
The writer, actor and director dedicates a chapter of her book, Not That Kind Of Girl - for which she received a reported $3.7 million advance - to a boy she met at Oberlin College in Ohio identified as 'Barry', who she alleges raped her one night after a party.

The 28-year-old admits in the tome to drinking alcohol and taking Xanax and cocaine before inviting Barry back to her on-campus apartment, but says the encounter quickly turned aggressive, and that Barry twice removed the condom during intercourse without telling her.

'I never gave permission to be rough, to stick himself inside me without a barrier between us,' she wrote.

'I never gave him permission.

'In my deepest self I know this, and the knowledge of it has kept me from sinking.'

Dunham's description of Barry is similarly explicit, explaining him as a 'mustachioed campus Republican' with a 'mustache that rode the line between ironic Williamsburg fashion and big buck hunter', who hosted a radio show called Real Talk With Jimbo, worked in the library stacking shelves and 'wore purple cowboy boots'.

She also said that he once punched a girl 'in the boob' at a party and, following a consensual sexual encounter, another girl woke to find blood spattered all over the wall 'like a crime scene'.

Furthermore Dunham does not state that 'Barry' is a pseudonym, as she does with other names that appear in her book.
An investigation by John Nolte from Breitbart News undertaken at the Oberlin campus, which was published Thursday, concluded that the 'Barry' Dunham describes is a 'ghost', and that no such person appeared to exist at the college during the years she studied there.
'In fact, we could not find anyone who remembered any Oberlin Republican who matched Dunham's colorful description,' Nolte wrote.
'Under scrutiny, Dunham's rape story didn’t just fall apart, it evaporated into pixie dust and blew away.'"

Conservative site Breitbart investigated Dunham's claim and came up with, a.o., the following (the Daily Mail article goes on):

"The Breitbart report followed an attack on Dunham by The National Review's hard-right columnist Kevin Williamson, who said she was 'grossly irresponsible' for publishing the rape claim in the first place.

Williamson said he spoke to a Barry who was a prominent Republican that attended Oberlin and that has been hounded by the media since the release of Not That Kind Of Girl in September.

This Barry told Williamson he has never met Dunham and did not have any kind of relationship with her.

He said the fact his name is Barry and that he is a Republican who went to Oberlin is 'the 'most unfortunate coincidence of my life'.

The man, who is married with kids, said he is petrified that his full name is going to be published.

Williamson then wrote of Dunham: 'It is at the very least the deployment of weaponized celebrity without any concern for collateral damage..."

OK, in the imaginary scenario of a leftozoid DS editor even willing to contemplate that there's more to this story and that it's not so favourable for our 'edgy girl', what we can expect then is that person claiming that the counterallegations come from a notorious rightwing site. Sure. That's why you don't have to take my word for it, and that's also why I do not posit that The Daily Mail offers bulletproof evidence to the contrary of Dunham's claims. But at age 49 I have come across such a gargantuan amount of lies and falsehoods perpetrated by the Left that I'm willing to believe that there was NEVER a 'mustachioed Conservative Republican' on Oberlin by the name of 'Barry' - and if there ever was, he did not rape her. Especially the last ten years I've seen the lies spread by the left multiply like ebola on steroids. From Piers Morgan who claimed British soldiers pissed on Iraqi POW's in an army truck over that other Barry 'if you like your plan you can keep your plan' to Hillary C. assuring Charles Woods, father of Navy SEAL Ty Woods, murdered in Benghazi, that "they were going to have that filmmaker arrested" [Mark Basseley Youssef - MFBB] - even though the movie made by that man was definitely NOT what triggered the embassy attack.

But hey, now that we're taking about rape, how about this??? In her own 'book', Not that kind of girl, Lena Dunham describes how she, as a child, sexually molested her younger sister:

"Dunham writes of casually masturbating while in bed next to her younger sister, of bribing her with “three pieces of candy if I could kiss her on the lips for five seconds … anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl I was trying.” At one point, when her sister is a toddler, Lena Dunham pries open her vagina — “my curiosity got the best of me,” she offers, as though that were an explanation."

"In one particularly unsettling passage, Dunham experimented with her six-year younger sister’s vagina. “This was within the spectrum of things I did,” she writes.
In the collection of nonfiction personal accounts, Dunham describes using her little sister at times essentially as a sexual outlet, bribing her to kiss her for prolonged periods and even masturbating while she is in the bed beside her."

If you thought Kevin Williamson, the National Review columnist who came out with this, is sucking it out of his thumb, nossir. Here's the relevant page straight out of Dunham's memoirs:

BUT ALL OF THAT DOES NOT MATTER! De Standaard has found a new role model for young women to emulate!!! A new heroine, so sick from eeeeeeevil Republicans and their 'War on Women' that 'SHE HAS OFTEN THOUGHT OF LEAVING AMERICA'. Dixit De Standaard.

Memo to De Standaard editors: congrats you fucking lying losers, you again give here ample proof that you can lay just as much claim to the laurels of objective, fact-based Journalism - which you so often bestow upon yourself - as Michael Mann can to be a Nobel Laureate. Oh, excuse me, that's another leftist LIE we won't hear about from you.

As for Lena Dunham, PLEASE ma'am, DO LEAVE THE STATES. For good if you please.

But don't come to Europe, for God's sake. We've got our fill from the likes of you, and it's spilling over.

Go to Iran, Syria, Yemen, Mali, Gaza, Afghanistan. Now THERE they're waging a War on Women, even though you're trying so hard to ignore it. CUNT.

Saturday, December 06, 2014

Joe Jackson with Happy Ending, a number from the iconic album Body and Soul (1984).

I remember Body and Soul well - it came out the year I started as a freshman in an engineering college in Ghent, and the world was full of promise and exciting possibilities. I had never been a jazz fan, but B & S's mix of jazz, pop and salsa fitted that brief era of being 'independent' in a large student town (backed up by parental cash of course) with bazillions of hot female students around. Especially this number sustained by Elaine Caswell's magnificent, at times ephemereal vocals struck a chord with Young Outlaw. To this day I consider it better than "You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)", even though that one peaked higher on all kinds of charts.

For the cover art Jackson gave a sympathetic nod to jazz legend Theodore Walter Rollins, whose album Sonny Rollins Vol. 2 from 1958 looks almost the same - except that it sports "Sonny" Rollins of course. Other great names on that album are pianists Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver.

Then it's the turn of Killing Joke with Love like Blood. From the 1985 album Night Time.

A campy video by now, or just plain annoying? Either way, a quintessential eighties number like this just had to be on Saturday Night one day.